Research In Laser Spectroscopy of Rare Earth Based Solids

When I arrived at Hamilton, I concentrated most of my effort on
the spectroscopy of upconversion laser materials. I got into this
field as a post-doc at IBM. I was a member of the Optical Storage
group there that was working on the development of compact blue laser
devices. An Upconversion Laser produces laser light at a higher
frequency than the pump light - hence the name - and is one possible
way of creating a blue laser using readily available infrared diode
lasers as excitation sources. Our group at IBM built the first
continuous upconversion laser and then developed several more lasers
before I left in mid-87. Since then, the field has grown and many
groups all over the world are working on upconversion.

For some time now I have been working on synthesis and spectroscopy of Rare Earth
doped sol-gel glasses. I collaborate on this project with Karen Brewer in
the chemistry department here, Dan Boye from Davidson College,
and Kurt Hoffman from Whitman College. Dan has put together a web
site where you can read about our students, papers, and presentations. We've had
funding from Research Corporation and Petroleum Research Fund to support the
project and have had many students make valuable contributions to the work.
Dan and I presented posters on RE-based sol-gels
at the Dynamic Processes Conferences in Christchurch (2003) and Segovia (2007) and at ICL '08- International Conference on
Luminescence - in Lyon, France. Our group presented 3 posters and one talk at DPC '10, held at Argionne National Lab and a poster at ICL '11 in Ann Arbor. We presented 2 posters at ICL '14 in Wroclaw, Poland last summer.

Courses Taught

Over the years I have taught introductory physics for science majors
and pre-meds, Quantum Physics, Classical Mechanics, and have directed senior
research projects. Last fall I taught Physics190, our course for entering physics
majors.This year I'm returning to Quantum Physics, then in the spring I have a junior-level advanced lab course designed to prepare
students for their senior research projects.

Several years ago I taught a
sophomore seminar with Ella Gant of the Art Department. It was called Art
and Physics of the Image and was a lot of fun.